


A Lifelong Student

by Delphi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, F/M, M/M, Multi, Seduction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-19
Updated: 2011-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:53:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kingsley makes a few erroneous assumptions—but he's more than happy to be corrected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lifelong Student

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Selmak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selmak/gifts).



When you're busy assuming, you're busy not-seeing. It was Moody who taught him that—formally, at least—but the lesson began long before, when Kingsley was still a schoolboy in Minerva McGonagall's Transfiguration classroom.

It wasn't until he became an Auror that he fully appreciated the small asides she slipped into her lectures for anyone canny enough to pay attention. He probably learned more about defence from her than from any of the ever-changing Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers who paraded through during his years at Hogwarts, and the knowledge had stuck. Transfiguration wasn't merely the science of turning one thing into another. It was a new set of eyes. It was a philosophy: an acknowledgement of the changeable, treacherous nature of the world.

Thinking on it, he could see why Moody and Professor McGonagall got on.

And as for him...

***

"Look what I brought," Moody says, shoving Kingsley ahead of him over the threshold into the low-lit warmth of Professor McGonagall's private rooms.

It's a cold, wet winter's night, and a case has kept them late in Hogsmeade. Kingsley is still keyed up despite the long day, and Moody apparently doesn't sleep. They'd probably be at the Hog's Head if it weren't nearly midnight, and if Kingsley were being sensible, he'd go home and rest while he still can, but Moody volunteered Hogwarts as a port in the storm, and he's rather flattered that the man doesn't mind him around on their off-hours.

"Minnie'll have the tea on. I told her I'd be up this way."

To Kingsley's surprise, Professor McGonagall ( _Minnie—really?_ ) actually is awake and waiting when they arrive, and she lets them in as Mr. Filch hangs back sourly in the corridor, obviously put out at having to see visitors in at an hour like this.

Not so far removed from his student days, Kingsley flashes an apologetic smile to him before the door closes. Then he turns to bow to Professor McGonagall, and his face warms more abruptly than the heat from the fire might excuse. She's dressed in casual robes, the sort that he never quite imagined teachers owning. They're dark green and cut loosely, slipping down to reveal a glimpse of her collarbone, and beneath the hem of them, her pale feet are bare.

"Moody," she says, her tone warm and mildly exasperated. "And Mr. Shacklebolt. This _is_ a surprise."

Something about the look she shoots Moody suggests it isn't, but she steers them both into the sitting room nonetheless. It's set up for company, with tea steeping and a few cakes arranged on an platter. Kingsley somehow finds himself between the two of them on the long sofa despite the presence of two chairs, and he steals surreptitiously curious glances at the bookshelves and knickknacks and other signs of genuine habitation. Caught in the cross-stream of their conversation with a cup of unpleasantly strong black tea in hand and a tartan throw bunched under him, he feels distinctly un-Scottish.

They aren't lovers, he decides, distracting himself with speculation. It is what will prove to be only his first erroneous assumption of the night. He was initially thrown by the peculiarity of the late-night imposition, but he's starting to really know his mentor, and Moody is far too at ease here, his shoulders slumped in relaxation and his feet up on the coffee table.

Kingsley himself is sitting up straight and alert as the freezing rain taps against the windowpanes. He is still just green enough for attraction and tension to be practically synonymous in his mind, and he is entirely too aware of the smell of Moody's aftershave and the fact that Professor McGonagall's hair is slightly damp, as though she were just recently in the bath.

"Moody—"

She calls him by his surname, Kingsley notes, adding that to the mound of evidence. Even if, in all honesty, he can't imagine even the mother Moody presumably has calling him Alastor.

"—boots off, or feet on the floor."

Although...here is where the first doubt niggles in Kingsley's mind, because lo and behold, Moody acquiesces with a grunt and pulls his boots off. Kingsley has had his ear chewed more than once over carelessly laying down a hat or letting someone hang up his cloak.

 _"Don't take anything off in company that you don't plan on keeping off."_

Professor McGonagall nods, seemingly satisfied, and passes Moody a biscuit. Her arm brushes against Kingsley's chest, and her warm, soft bosom presses against his shoulder for a brief moment.

From the corner of his eye, he catches the flash of Moody's grin.

***

Kingsley at fourteen was all shoulders and feet, bumping into doorways and tripping over rugs. Sitting was marginally safer, and at that moment he was curled compactly over his desk, watching Professor McGonagall as she lectured. All too aware of his own awkwardness, he could not help but habitually admire the sharp but smooth way she moved, turning on a Knut in high-heeled boots or drawing her wand with a whip-smart flourish.

His quill moved mindlessly as he transcribed her every word whilst stealing small, guilty glances at her chest.

"It is essential to memorise your conversion tables. You do not wish to meet the same fate as Gregory the Legless, who attempted to transfigure a juvenile Welsh Green into a perpetually lit pot-bellied stove..."

 _A rampaging dragon burst through the wall in a shower of broken glass and pulverized brick, breathing fire and sending everyone diving behind their desks. Everyone except Kingsley, of course. He leapt up with his wand in hand, ducking jets of flame, and executed a perfect ice hex straight down the dragon's gullet, sending the beast retreating in a cloud of steam._

 _"Oh, how brave, Mr. Shacklebolt!" Professor McGonagall gasped, having been knocked to the floor._

 _He helped her to her feet._

 _"Call me Kingsley," he said, and she smiled at him, and her lips..._

"Mr. Shacklebolt. I don't wish to advocate undue conformity, but the rest of your classmates have left for their next class."

Kingsley straightened up quickly, hot to the ears. "Er...I just have to finish one note, Professor. One minute."

He thought chilly, mundane thoughts, and if he had the slightest conception that women knew about the existence of stiffies, he would have been even more humiliated to see Professor McGonagall briefly pinch the bridge of her nose before sharply, smartly striding out, leaving him his privacy.

***

They're pulling his leg, Kingsley cautiously concludes. That's the only explanation for the strange turn the conversation has taken. He's learned to expect it by now from Moody, but the double act is new.

"Shacklebolt here had a schoolboy crush on you," Moody announces.

Kingsley closes his eyes and silently counts to three. "Confided in confidence," he says mildly. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from blowing up at Moody, and in front of his not-so-schoolboy crush least of all.

"No such thing," Moody says. "Don't admit out loud to anything you wouldn't want to see on the front page of the Daily Prophet."

"Fine," Kingsley says, and he finally dares to look over at Professor McGonagall. She looks...amused, maybe, something glinting in her eye. She isn't wearing her spectacles, although he is almost certain she was when he first came in. "It would have to be a slow news day."

"Besides," Moody continues, as if he hasn't spoken at all, "fair's fair. Minnie likes your earring."

"Exactly how many times am I going to have to ask you not to call me Minnie?"  Professor McGonagall gives Kingsley a look that silently, fondly, sympathetically says: _"Moody."_

Kingsley grins, amused but a little baffled.

"You said it was dashing," Moody insists.

"Your calling me Minnie, no. The earring, yes."

Professor McGonagall is the only person he has ever met who can uncork the red ink for a spoken sentence. It's a turn-on.

"It's a liability," Moody says, reaching out and poking the little gold hoop through Kingsley's right earlobe. "One good pull in a fight..."

Kingsley braces himself, but Moody only gives it a teasing little tug. Then, oddly but not entirely unwelcome, the fingertip idles, tracing the shape of his ear.

He turns, brow creased, but that finger prods him to turn back, and the next thing he knows, soft lips are pressing against his own. Professor McGonagall is kissing him, and her hand is on his knee, and Moody's fingertip is trailing down his neck.

 _Oh_ , he thinks rather dimly, with a rush of mingled relief and excitement. This would be the other explanation.

***

"Vigilance, Shacklebolt—do I have to spell it out for you?"

"No," Kingsley said quietly, on his arse in the practice hall with a red-faced, triumphant instructor looming over him.

"V-I-G-I-L-E—"

"A," Kingsley interjected before he could help himself.

Moody paused and darkly muttered something under his breath about him being worse than someone called Minnie—at which point Kingsley seized the opportunity to lever himself up and headbutt Moody square in the brow. Moody went down with a shout, and Kingsley dived desperately for his wand.

"Ha!" Moody cried, grabbing his leg and pulling hard.

The duel turned into a scuffle, verging on a brawl. They thrashed gracelessly, shoving, kicking, and punching. Moody fought dirty—Moody _bit_ —and something hot flashed so fiercely through Kingsley's gut as teeth dug into his shoulder that he very nearly missed the opportunity to drive his elbow into Moody's side and retrieve his wand.

He got his hand around it, and when he spun around, a hex on his lips, it was to the broken-mirror image of Moody's own wand whipping up.

They both froze as they were, wands levelled and breath coming hard. Then, after a very long moment, Moody burst out laughing.

"You aren't hopeless after all, Shacklebolt."

A rough hand clipped him sharply on the back of the head, and Kingsley grinned. That really shouldn't have been half so hot as it was.

***

The lights are off in the bedroom, and the curtains are drawn, and he hopes to god that there's a silencing spell up. The small of salt and musk and oil is heavy on the air, hanging amidst the sound of heavy breathing and the whispers of the bedsheets. Smooth hands push against his shoulders, more forceful and demanding than a fool would attribute to a civilian, and he follows their lead, his mouth moving down as a rough, half-bearded cheek rubs against his back.

That his teacher could be a cat, that his teacher could be a _woman_ , were unfathomable to the boy Kingsley had been when he first set foot in her classroom. That Alastor Moody could kiss like an absolute sweetheart was equally impossible up until two and a half minutes ago. He grins against the softness of damp skin and hums in rueful pleasure as two pairs of hands show him the way.

He is always happy to learn something new.


End file.
